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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Do you Tap?

This post is going to be about a product known as TAP .....Transfer Artist Paper, but first I want to tell you about Heather Ordover. Heather has a site called Craftlita podcast for crafters who love books. She recently contacted me to let me know that she had in fact mentioned me in one of these podcasts, Cool! She just had so many wonderful things to say about what can be found here on my blog that I think she may have actually made me blush, so when you get a chance please go on over and check her out.........you just may find yourself tuning in to listen to Heather as you happily while away the time working on your current projects.

So........Tap. Have you heard of this stuff? Have you, do you, use it? I have been wanting to get my hands on this for a long time and was so excited to find it last month, that I bought a couple of packages. I am going to reserve judgment as I go along using it in various ways. I will tell you what I like about it and why I am also quite disappointed with it.First of all what is it?...... well it is a paper that has a coating on one side. You can put it through your printer, you can draw and paint directly on it and then, using an iron you can "transfer" your image onto all sorts of surfaces, fabric, glass, wood, metal, paper...etc .......but I really only care about using it with fabric at this point.I must tell you that it is a kind of expensive medium to play with as 5 sheets at 12.95 plus 13% tax means that they are costing me nearly $3/sheet so you can bet I'll be using every inch of this stuff.The first thing I did was try to draw directly onto this and found out very quickly(to my great disappointment) that a pencil or crayon dragged across this paper just causes it to "scrape" the coating off.........not real happy as it was one of the things I wanted this stuff for. So the next thing I did was run a sheet through the printer. I created some text for a label and a couple of feathers to experiment with. The results going through the printer were good. Nice sharp, clear text, but when it is ironed onto fabric (as in this label) you still see the "edges" where it was cut from the paper and it is a little stiff........I thought it was not suppose to change the hand of the fabric much....well trust me it does! It softens a little after washing but I honestly did not find this really much better than the T shirt transfer papers that are out there. I left this photo as a large file so if you click on it, you can see what I mean.okay, so then, I went on to using some markers, inks and paints. I printed these quickly drawn feather outlines onto the TAP and then went over the lines with a sharpie marker. The marker glided over the paper fairly well but the coating will gum up your marker in a very short time. Next I got playing with paints. The yellow and orange feather was created using Setacolour transparent paints straight from the bottle.........with the green feather, I decided to really test the paper. I brushed a clear gel over the entire surface and then went in with all purpose inks, added more marker here and there and let it all dry.

Once the green one was completely dry, I went back in and scraped away some of the colour........this actually proved to be quite interesting. I cut the pieces out fairly close to the image and have saved every scrap of the paper for later use. I WILL use it somehow.Finally you see the images after they have been ironed to fabric. I have to say that the images really do transfer beautifully.I can see where this stuff would be great for collage work, but I was not impressed with it on a plain solid fabric. (as in that quilt label) Also, you should know that if you plan to do any micro-stippling on this stuff, you will need to be prepared to get lots of little Tap Dandruff on you.I will continue to play with this product and post the results.

Yes, I do TAP or have TAP'd! You can see some transfer I did here:http://robbiespawprints.blogspot.com/2009/04/art-diary-page-3-finished.html I agree, it is pricey; you have to be careful and not scrap off the coating. You can color directly on to the paper easily and then transfer that. It has plus and minus with regards to transfer..and I think you can transfer to woor or canvas.

I have used it on printed fabric and must say it blends in much better than the T-shirt transfers I have used. I also did not press long, lifted off and did not see edges, and it was softer than the regular transfers. I want it for more mixed media, but was impressed with the application to fabric.Ordered mine from Amazon, lg. package and got it discounted, but still pricey.I still would use this over what I have used before. I think the only way to not change the hand of a fabric is either direct ink or through the printer....All in all, I was happy!

You always run interference for us, Jill -- thanks for letting us know The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of this product. The feathers are truly beautiful -- is there an advantage to using this product over the technique of drawing the feathers onto the fabric and coloring them in? (Inquiring minds want to know . . .)

on the Janome Horizon MC15000

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I am more than happy to share what I discover as I create, but please remember that the images, designs & text you see here are the property of Jill Buckley and are not to be reproduced or distributed in any manner without my permission.Much appreciated!